


Ancestor Worship

by TonalModulator



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25031149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonalModulator/pseuds/TonalModulator
Summary: Dreveni visits her father's ancestral tomb.
Kudos: 10





	Ancestor Worship

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the Dunmeris headcanons but imo Dunmeris doesn't need gender, so I'm using "Ama [name]" for what kids call their parents (a mix of "alma" and "ata" while still following what we know of child language development), and "Daeli [name]" for close family friends/not-technically-parents-but-might-as-well-be.
> 
> Dreveni is Ildari and Sotha Sil's kid (spoilers for stuff in Journeyed Far that hasn't been written yet, I guess).

###  4E 202

Dreveni flipped the Mazed Band over and over in her hand. Her mother had asked her to hold onto it in case she ever needed it, but she hadn’t seriously considered using it before now. It had lost a lot of its utility, anyway. Vivec was a crater, and Mournhold was only just starting to be livable again. But she wasn’t interested in either of those destinations right now.

She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous. There was the fact that she hadn’t been to the Clockwork City in, well, two centuries by some counts, a millennium or so by others—either way, she was not quite five years old at the time. The city was a fuzzy memory by this point, and her father just as fuzzy.

She put the ring on and let herself be shot through the veils between worlds until she landed on a hard brass floor. She vaguely recognized the Mechanical Fundament, very close to the Cogitum Centralis. To her mild surprise, the place was still humming with power, though it was a little darker than she remembered. She had not been sure what to expect—whether the city would still be running as usual, or if it would have withered with its god gone. She was glad to see that the former was true. She was still not sure whether there were people here anymore, but the fact that there was power in the city meant it would be easier to reach her destination.

Wishing she had a map, Dreveni made her way in the general direction of where she thought the Brass Fortress might be. She noticed a factotum down the hall, apparently patrolling. She readied a spell as she approached it. It stopped its patrol and turned to face her as she drew closer, and then started marching directly for her.

She drew back her spell hand to strike, but the factotum reached out and patted her on the head.

“Greetings, Serjo Dreveni,” it said.

Dreveni laughed and dispersed her spell. She had forgotten about that bit of their program. How odd that it recognized her after so long, and knew to adjust for her drastic change in height.

“Greetings, Sera Factotum,” she said. “Could you point me to the Brass Fortress?”

“Of course, serjo,” it said. It guided her the rest of the way out of the Fundament and into the Brass Fortress, where they parted ways. “Go forth, and create.”

A woman waited for her on the other side of the door, maul at the ready.

“You there,” the woman said. “Who are you, and how in Oblivion did you get in here?”

She looked almost like Dreveni remembered, if a little more modified than she had been a thousand years ago.

“Daeli Luciana?” Dreveni said.

The woman’s eyebrows rose slightly at the title.

“ _ Proctor _ Luciana, sorry,” she corrected herself and gave her a small, polite bow. “Sotha Dreveni Llothri. I got here using Barilzar’s Mazed Band.”

Luciana’s face lit up in recognition and delight.

“Dreveni!” Luciana pulled her into a hug. “Sorry for that less-than-warm greeting. You’re obviously welcome here.” She released her and took a step back. “Look at you—you’re all grown up! And inherited Seht’s height, I see. How long has it been, from your perspective?”

“About two hundred years.”

“Two hundred…and a thousand from ours. I heard you’ve been busy, shouting at dragons and saving the kalpa or something?” She noticed the surprise on Dreveni’s face and added, “Your mom writes on occasion. So, what brings you back to your ancestral home, as it were?”

“Ancestral duties, as it were. Or, well, descendant’s duties? I wanted to…talk to my dad, I guess. Sorry, I don’t have much experience with ancestor worship. Or any worship, really. Side effect of being the child of a god and a god-killer.” She felt her face getting hot, worrying that she was talking too much and displaying an ignorance unbefitting of the child of the Wizard, but Luciana seemed unbothered.

“You want to visit your father’s tomb,” Luciana said. “It’s back the way you came, just off the Cogitum. I can take you there.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

“If you don’t mind, we can wake Varuni up on the way there. She’s on the Throne Aligned right now; we’ve been taking turns ever since Seht died. She’d love to see you, assuming you’re not in a rush.”

* * *

Varuni leapt off the throne as soon as Luciana disconnected her, and threw herself at Dreveni, practically smothering her with hugs. Dreveni noticed that she had significantly more modifications than she remembered. She wondered how much of it was to accommodate a connection to the Throne Aligned, and how much was to combat the aging process.

“I saw you arrive, but I scarcely believed it,” she said. “Lord Seht will be overjoyed to hear from you after all this time, I’m sure.”

Dreveni felt a pang of guilt to think of how long she had left her father waiting for her to visit. She must have shown it on her face, because Varuni jumped to clarify.

“Not that he’s been alone all this time, of course! I talk to him on occasion, keep him updated on the city’s well-being, that sort of thing.”

The Sotha Ancestral Tomb, if it could be called that, was in a chamber that had been added below the Cogitum Centralis, connected by a sloping hallway. The Apostles left Dreveni at the door so that she could honor her ancestor in private.

It was a small room with a single ashpit. There were some offerings scattered around the edge: some scrap metal, a few gears, a disabled firepot spider. Dreveni retrieved a centurion dynamo core from her bag and added it to the mix, and then hesitantly knelt in front of the pit.

No. That was too weird, too formal. She opted to sit on the floor instead.

“Um…hi,” she said. “It’s Dreveni. You probably know that. Sorry.”

She cringed at her own awkwardness, glad that she was alone. Or, mostly alone, anyway. She closed her eyes to block out the strangeness of the environment and pressed on.

“I wanted to check in, since it’s been, you know, a couple centuries. Well, I’ve tried talking to you at shrines throughout Morrowind, but I’ve never known if you could actually hear me, since you weren’t there, or on Nirn at all, really.”

“I could, though a shrine’s connection is monodirectional.”

Dreveni jumped and opened her eyes at the sound of the voice, and saw the ghostly form of Sotha Sil sitting in front of her.

“Apologies, I did not mean to startle you,” he said with a small smile. His voice was soft and lacked the divine reverberations that she remembered, but it was definitely him. “It is good to see you, Dreveni.”

“You too,” she replied in barely a whisper. Though she had planned a number of topics to cover, she now felt herself at a loss for words when faced with her father’s manifested ancestor spirit.

He seemed to detect her fraught state and decided to help. “How was your time in Skyrim?”

“Eventful,” she said. “I know you told me before we left for the Fourth Era that I’d have some sort of ‘Prisoner’ role, but that’s not how I imagined it going. I thought I was going to be, well, cleaning up the mess you and Ama Iya left. And Daeeli Vehk and Ayem, of course.”

“And what a mess it is,” he agreed. “But no, your role had much broader implications.”

“Yeah…I guess I saved the world. Still feels weird to say that.”

“You did. You performed amazing feats, Dreveni.”

She laughed awkwardly. For some reason, it was uncomfortable to hear that sort of praise from someone who used to be a god, even if that person was her father. She wondered if she would ever get the opportunity to get used to it, but for now, she tried to change the subject.

“I also learned some cool things. Can I show you something?”

“Absolutely.”

She took a breath, and then paused. “You can’t feel anything on this plane, right?”

“No, not in the regular sense.”

“Okay.” She took another breath—“ _ YOL TOOR SHUL. _ ”—and breathed out a plume of fire. As soon as she had done so, she worried that it was not enough to serve as a true demonstration of what she had learned in Skyrim. She could have shown him her Dragon Aspect, or Become Ethereal…

“Impressive,” he said, despite her worry.

“That’s not all I learned, of course,” she said, fumbling to make up for her weak display. “I’m planning to start a research project on the magical properties of shouts. They’re not all draconic versions of basic destruction spells, of course. There’s this one shout, for example, that I’ve been able to use to clear up an ash storm in a small area. If I can better understand how it really works, then I might be able to figure out how to amplify it, or enchant something with that effect, or something.” She noticed her father smiling and grew even more embarrassed. “It could really help with the recovery efforts since, you know, Morrowind still isn’t doing too great right now. It’s niche, I guess, and I know it’s possible that nothing will come of it, but there’s a lot of untapped potential and I feel like I’m in a place to make use of it.”

“Did you know I once studied the same topic? Tried to, anyway. Back during the Nordic occupation.”

Logically, she knew he was trying to relate to her, even support her, but emotionally, she could not help but feel a wave of discouragement. She had forgotten that he lived through the time of the First Era Tongues. Her little  _ YOL _ display must have been even more pitiful than she initially thought.

“In my case, it was more to learn how to combat it,” he continued. “I never made much progress. It ended up being easier to ally with the Dwemer who could use their tonal architecture as a defensive—or offensive—tool.” He finally noticed her awkward expression and added, “You are much better equipped to study it than I was. I am sure you will make grand discoveries where I could not.”

She tried to smile and utter some thanks.

“What an incredible mer you have grown into, Dreveni,” Sotha Sil said at last, his voice even softer now. “I must leave the mortal plane, but know that I love you and I am so proud of you.”

Somehow, she was not prepared for that. After all her worries leading up to and throughout the whole conversation, to hear that her father, an ex-god, was proud of her…well, it was overwhelming. She tried to keep her emotions steady and managed to whisper, “I love you too.”

“Give Ama Iya and Daeli Vehk my love too, would you?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. And while I know the Clockwork City may no longer feel like home, know that you are always welcome here. It would be nice to see you again,” he said with a smile. “Until then, farewell.”

His spirit dispersed as he left the plane.


End file.
